Climate Control Ventilation’s New Direction Depending on where you live, indoor cli-mate 8 Long a name in home ventilation, Ensto Enervent turns its attention to indoor climate control in public spaces. Scott Diel Petri Juntunen is not only an efficiency issue: it can have a great deal to do with health, as well. But regardless of the reason for its use, the market for indoor climate control is massive. A different Utopia “The Utopian vision used to be a suburban house with a white picket fence,” says Jukka Riekkinen, Managing Director of Ensto Enervent. “But now there’s a generation who wants a new hundred-square-meter flat within walk-ing distance of the city center.” Riekkinen says this movement will not kill single-family homes but will bring balance to the market. “When you get more money now, you don’t necessarily leave the metropolitan area.” And the market is not only homes. Riekkinen says urbanization means more families and children in cities, and therefore the need for good air quality in public buildings. A different Enervent Enervent products are most often associated with sin-gle- family homes. But to address the needs of a chang-ing market, the company’s newest product, Pallas with EnergyBUS, is turning its attention to public buildings. "Traditionally, ventilation has meant opening the window when air inside the house becomes too heavy. A more modern way was to bring outside air in via an air handling unit. With an AHU you could filter the air and capture energy from exhaust air to minimize heating costs," says Riekkinen. "But for today and the future, solu-tions must consider the feeling of the inside air. Now we are really talking about air conditioning. Think about all the excess energy in a modern home, which is created by the sun, lighting, home appliances and as well as human activity. What if we could store that energy and then move it for use when we need it?” Case in point Few things generate as much heat as machinery. Fifty kilo-meters east of Helsinki, Anders Nyberg of Tom Nyberg Metallverkstad built a 1,500-square meter manufacturing and office facility and needed a way to heat it. He turned to Ensto. Nyberg’s facility uses four Pallas units, one Pegasos unit with heat pump, plus a 5,000-liter water tank. The system maintains the indoor climate by bringing in fresh and fil-tered air, cooling, dehumidifying, and by taking the excess heat the machine shop generates in the day and channeling it to the water tank. At night, that heat is returned to warm the building when machines aren’t running. More activity, more savings Nyberg moved into his building in late 2013 and says his average cost to heat and cool the 1,500 square meters has been 800 euros per month. He expects this to drop “sig-nificantly” once the building is fully rented – currently it’s approximately one quarter occupied. More human activity means more heat generated. According to Nyberg, the cost of the entire system was around 200,000 euros. “This was for absolutely everything – planning, the water tank, the electrical system, the Pallas units, automation system, warm water, and floor heating.” Considering solely the savings by not purchasing dis-trict heating, Nyberg expects the system to return his orig-inal investment as early as five years out, maximum ten. In his other properties Nyberg has witnessed district heating prices double over ten years. “I wanted a system that was not dependent on outside suppliers.” Significant immediate savings in investment costs also comes from not having to install fire dampers or place fire insulation around air ducts, since only water is transported between the rooms. Competitors and confidence Although district heating was not a consideration, before choosing Enervent Nyberg explored ground source heat. Working in a radon zone, however, meant digging extra holes to vent gas. As a consequence ground source heat was not cost competitive. Nyberg also had used an Enervent system at his home, which gave him the confidence to try Pallas for his busi-ness. “My home system has operated nine years without a problem. That was a good indicator.” continued ensto today | SOLUTIONS
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